Thai traveling to Vietnam - will Vietnam immigration ask for evidence of return air ticket?

[Tomtomtom69]

Hi,

As a regular visitor to Vietnam and having worked there for a while, I know the rules regarding Vietnamese visas quite well.

For most visitors that require a visa (either a pre-arranged airport visa or a visa in your passport in advance) no return or onward ticket is required. Be aware that some airlines flying between Thailand and Vietnam will ask you whether you have a return or onward ticket if you attempt to purchase a one-way flight to Vietnam although this is only required for Thais and other visa exempt nationalities. They won't however ask you for an outbound flight from Vietnam at check-in once you have purchased your ticket though (I guess this is because ticketing agents probably deal mostly with Thais who don't require visas for short stays and thus assume the rules that apply to them apply to others whereas check-in agents see plenty of foreigners on every flight).

Although this is not a big deal, since you can mostly travel without a copy of your e-ticket itinerary these days as information is stored by the airlines electronically, I was wondering if Vietnamese immigration regularly asks Thai visitors to produce evidence of outbound departure if flying in. I know that Thai immigration does not as I have traveled with a Vietnamese friend before and he was never asked for any evidence by Thai immigration (incidentally, on two of those occasions he did NOT have an outbound ticket from Thailand when entering the country).

I remember last year a Danish citizen, who was entering Vietnam via Saigon as a 15-day visa exempt visitor after arriving on a flight from Copenhagen via Bangkok was asked to produce an itinerary by Vietnamese immigration.

There won't be any problems at check-in because the Thai passenger in question has a return ticket but there is nothing that says Vietnam requires a printed copy of outbound flight tickets to be shown however as just mentioned I did spot one man requiring such evidence to be presented, but he wasn't Thai.

Does anyone have any experience traveling with a Thai passenger and whether they needed to show an itinerary at Vietnam immigration?

[craigt3365]

I think this is better over in the visa forum. Let's move this topic over there. OK?

[Jay Sata]

I've travelled a lot to Vietnam with my wife and she always uses her Thai passport. We have never booked a return as we never know when are where we will return from. Never had a problem.

[rod2011]

My friend has never had a problem visiting Vietnam on her Thai passport.

The onky problem she has is local people assume she is Vietnamese and speak to her. When she does not understand they just shout louder !

[LongTimeLurker]

VN immigration won't care but the airline you're travelling on might if you have no return flight or it is over 30 days they would want to see evidence of a return ticket.

[Jay Sata]

Not in my experience. Flown in to Saigon many times and neither of us has ever had a problem with a one way ticket. We often take a couple of internal flights before leaving Hanoi on a one way back to BKK.

The train trip up the coast from HCM city is worth doing. I love Halong Bay.